1.7 Million Under the Poverty Line

More than 1.7 million residents of Israel lived under the poverty line, according to the annual report on poverty for 2012, released Tuesday by the Bituach Le'umi National Insurance Institute and the Central Bureau of Statistics. While the poverty rate declined half a percent, Israel remained third from the bottom of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

While the number of poor children declined two percent, the figure represented 33.7 percent of the juvenile population. The poverty rate among the aging population rose more than three percent to almost 23 percent or more than 180,000 seniors. The number of poor families came to about 440,000.